


Whirling

by jellybeany



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animals, Dancing, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Humour, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 13:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16517186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeany/pseuds/jellybeany
Summary: Potter dips him, gentle and slow.Or: what if Hermione had taught Harry to dance when they were in the tent together?





	Whirling

Flitwick waves his wand so all the desks and chairs float gracefully to the far end of the room and stack themselves neatly on top of each other. It’s a little different to when McGonagall clears a room; she tends to cast with such force that a chair leg or two ends up smashed to pieces. It’s not that their esteemed headmistress is losing her touch — rather her patience. 

“If everyone could choose a partner, please!” Flitwick chitters. “Yes, Mr Finnigan, you can partner a wizard if you wish, of course. Say, is this everybody?”

It can’t be everybody, because it’s odd numbers. Draco has already worked out this out, and knows that he will be the one without a partner. He stalks to the far corner of the room and leans back against the stone window ledge so as not to be noticeable. If only Pansy were here to dance with him, instead of gallivanting about in France spending a fortune on perfume and hair potions.

But if Pansy were here, she’d probably be trying to pinch his arse. In their dancing lessons in fourth year, he’d had to put a sticking charm on her hand to keep it on his shoulder. Dear old Pans is probably digging her manicured fingertips into French boys’ bottoms right this second. 

“Now, we’ll start with the box step—“ Flitwick is cut off by the classroom door banging open and ricocheting off the stone. There’s Potter, looking dishevelled and panting like he ran a mile. Which he probably did. 

At first, Draco is relieved to see him. Potter was missing at breakfast. And nobody seemed to be talking about it. Of course, Potter was often absent, usually busy vanquishing Dark Lords and taking bludgers to the face and generally being a dramatic scar-headed twat. But after seeing Harry Potter’s body crumpled in the giant’s arms last summer, carried into the courtyard and looking as fragile as a dead bird, Draco’s heart couldn’t quite take it. 

That image had scared him more than Voldemort. You-know-who had been around all along, spoken about and rumoured to be here or there, until he was. The state of terror that was Draco’s life appeared gradually, like a frog being boiled alive.

Harry Potter being dead was not something Draco had ever imagined, and even the short moments where it appeared to be truth were unendurable.

But then, remembering he was in a draughty classroom and was safe and alive, he was not relieved. Harry Potter was now the only other student without a partner, and two students without partners inevitably became each others partner. 

“Sorry I’m late, Professor,” Potter pants. “Overslept.” 

Any other year, that would not have passed an excuse. But Potter looks like he needs sleep. Besides, he earned it.

Harry dumps his messenger bag in the corner with everyone else’s, and throws a smile at Granger and the Weasel. 

“Just in time, Harry. You can partner Mr Malfoy, please.” 

Harry doesn’t need asking twice, he walks over to Draco immediately. Draco was sure he’d refuse, if not because it was _him_ , then because he was a wizard. Muggleborns were funny about that sort of thing, it turns out. Finnigan had made such a fuss when he’d first heard that wizards can marry wizards and witches can marry witches. Two wizards can’t make a baby, he’d said, as if that has anything to do with anything. 

Flitwick turns on the dusty old gramophone, sending classical music warbling about the classroom. Potter’s eyes flick to the gramophone and then back to Draco. Draco finds he can’t breathe suddenly. The very idea of dancing with _Harry Potter, Chosen One_ is so impossible, it feels as if his limbs, along with his brain, are stuck in treacle. 

Professor Flitwick is chalking elaborate diagrams of feet and arrows on the blackboard at the front of the class and nattering away. Weasley and Granger are already in hold. They’re a sickening couple — they don’t do public displays of affection very often, and that’s what makes them so sickening. They have such a secure relationship they don’t need to prove it. 

The last display of affection Draco saw from them was a month ago, when the headmistress announced at the welcome feast that there would be a Yule Ball for the eighth year class. Weasley had interrupted McGonagall, got on one knee in front of the entire school, and asked her to go to the ball with him. Granger that is, not McGonagall. She looked half embarrassed, half overjoyed, and half furious, never mind that that makes three halves, and then she bent down and snogged him.

Again, Granger, not McGonagall.

He’s pulled out of his reverie when Potter grabs his hand. He spares a moment to lament how dreadfully pale his skin looks in comparison to Potter’s, until he registers Potter’s mouth moving.

“I said, I’ll lead.” Potter grins. “I’m taller.”

“Oh, by half an inch,” Draco argues on reflex. They both know it’s by more than half an inch. Potter shot up in sixth year, all those treacle tarts and puddings finally caught up with him. 

Potter’s other hand settles firmly Draco’s waist, burning a hole though his jumper. It’s been so long since he was touched by anyone like this, in an intimate way. And now his face is burning. Potter is so very close. It doesn’t make sense, but he feels a strange jolt through him, a feeling telling him anything is possible, and perhaps he hasn’t ruined everything. 

He smells incredible, and Draco berates himself for thinking that, and then he panics because they’re about to dance and as much as he’s tried to hide it, Draco is all elbows and knees. 

“Ready?” Potter whispers, leaning in so close that Draco can see a pair of vampire bite freckles along his jaw.

Then, without waiting for an answer, Potter is whisking him, whirling him, they spin past other couples and the room is a blur, the music seems to get faster and Draco is led backwards and turned and spun and Potter is so warm and Draco can’t breathe, he doesn’t know how much time has passed and he clings on tight until they stop in the centre of the room.

Potter dips him, gentle and slow, and Draco’s fingers find themselves sliding into the curls at the nape of Potter’s neck. He’s not sure how he hasn’t fallen, he’s lost awareness of where his arms and legs are because he feels like one big melting mess, and if Potter’s lips get any closer to his then Draco won’t be able to hold himself back. 

All too soon Potter pulls him upright, although he still feels upside-down. He’s belatedly aware of everybody in the room looking at them. A few people clap. Flitwick is so impressed that he awards twenty house points to Gryffindor, and Granger doesn’t even remind him that eighth years don’t get house points. 

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Even the second time around, NEWTs year is revision hell. Draco doesn’t come up for air on Wednesday until he’s completed the Charms essay and perfected the spell for transfiguring a jelly baby into a candelabra. The Potions research will have to wait, because if he spends one more second in this dusty old library he’s going to set his own kneecaps on fire. 

Granger is sitting at one of the tables along the window, nose buried deep in _The Translatrix_ by Mary Snell-Hornby. He needs to borrow that book for his Ancient Runes class but she always seems to have it. He wonders if she even needs it anymore, or if she’s just holding on to it to force him to come and talk to her. 

He hasn’t spoken to Granger since he sent her a terribly long, rambling, and overly sincere apology letter in June. And he doesn’t want to talk about it. 

Granger looks up at him when he leaves, but he hurries off and doesn’t slow his pace until he gets to the swinging pendulum beneath the clock tower. 

The courtyard is blissfully empty. This far into October, icicles are forming on the edge of the fountain, and no students below fifth year are good enough at warming charms to want to stay outside during free periods. 

Draco makes a beeline for the nearest bench, and as he sits down Potter unravels into visibility. He stuffs the invisibility cloak into his bag and ruffles a hand through his hair nervously.

“Hi,” Potter says sheepishly.

They haven’t spoken since that dance class, the one Draco is still feeling dizzy from. He would have written it off as a fever dream if people hadn’t been talking about it so much. One of the Patil twins (he can never tell which) seems particularly offended that Potter couldn’t dance like that in fourth year. Romilda Vane is reportedly planning something epic to get him to go to the ball with her, and since that rumour started Potter hasn’t been seen outside classes. 

“What are you doing? Spying on me?” 

Potter looks genuinely surprised, and Draco feels his face heat.

“I’m hiding from Hermione. She’s trying to make me revise.”

Potter pulls out a chocolate frog card from the pocket of his robes and fiddles with it.

“Yes, because you’d never spy on anyone under that cloak, would you?” he spits. And then feels stupid, because he’d managed half the term without dragging up the past, and they’d almost been getting along. 

“Not anymore,” he answers evenly, and casts a warming charm over Draco that makes him tingle to the tips of his fingers. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching Jobberknolls swoop over the tops of the trees, until the question bursts out of him.

“Since when can _you_ dance like _that_?” 

“Oh. I was wondering when you were going to throw a strop about that,” Potter mumbles. 

Asking a simple question is hardly throwing a strop, but now Draco can’t say that without sounding like he is indeed throwing a strop. “No, I didn’t use a spell, and I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. Since this year. Living in a tent for months, there wasn’t much else to do.”

Draco gapes.

“I mean, that’s not all I did, obviously,” he says, scratching behind his ear. Everyone at Hogwarts knows about the Horcrux hunt by now. “And we had some books, but… I got really bored, so Hermione taught me to dance.”

“And what did Weasley have to say about that?”

Potter frowns, and claws at his own chest for something that isn’t there. He stares at his palm, empty-handed, and then closes it. 

“Me and Hermione aren’t…” 

“I know,” Draco says quickly. And then, because he’s a colossal fool, he adds: “I missed you.”

“Huh?” Harry stares at Draco like someone has set off a wet-start firework in his ear.

“Last year, when I was here and you were… dancing.”

“Missed throwing dungbombs in my cauldron in Potions, you mean?” His tone is light, but his expression is serious.

He considers telling Potter exactly how much he’d missed him, the nights he spent hoping he would turn up out of thin air, until he did, and then the nights he’d spent inexplicably hoping he’d come back. But he cops out.

“I stopped doing that after second year. It was a complete waste, your potions smell like dungbombs anyway.“

A few years ago that would have provoked Potter into a delightfully cross expression and clenched fists. But it doesn’t anymore. Harry pinches him in the side, making him yelp and laugh on reflex like being tickled.

“You missed me,” he says, leaning in.

“Everyone did.” It’s true, but it’s a poor defence. 

“Including you.”

“So?”

Harry sucks on his lower lip and rocks from side to side like he’s trying to come to a decision. His top button is undone, and Draco has a mad urge to do it up and fix his tie. And then to undo it and all of the rest of the buttons and pull him into a warm bed and hold him tight and never let him go. 

He can join the queue behind the rest of the wizarding world. Although, the rest of the wizarding world isn’t here right now.

“Ron says—“ Harry starts awkwardly, but Draco never gets to hear what Ron says because a Niffler the size of an Indian elephant has just thundered through the courtyard with six teachers screaming after it.

 

—————————-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The culprits are apprehended after Hagrid wrestles the Niffler down and locks it in the trophy room. The staff had wanted to keep it outside but couldn’t stop it barrelling towards the nearest shiny object, letting out deafening squeaks.

The culprits turned out to be two third year Ravenclaw girls who fancy themselves the next Fred and George Weasley. Draco knows this because he heard Professor Sinistra shouting, “ _I suppose you fancy yourselves the next Fred and George Weasley!_ ”

The girls, either because they have guts of steel or simply can’t understand a rhetorical question, answered (in unison), “They’re legendary, Miss!”

As has been proved to Draco time and time again, girls are extremely dangerous.

“They still haven’t got it back to its original size,” the Girl Weasley says at dinner.

“It’s quite clever of them, really,” says Granger. “If they had used an Engorgement Charm, any of the teachers could have reversed it easily.”

“So what did they use?” asks Potter. Draco listens to this conversation but feels a little bit like he is in two places at once, both sitting at the eighth year table and also watching it from the Slytherin table on the other side of the room. Potter nudges him. Draco stares back vacantly. Then Potter reaches over him to grab the rosemary potatoes, and dishes some out onto both their plates.

“They said they’d been feeding it a course of growth potions since the start of the year,” says Longbottom from between Girl Weasley and Granger. “I had to write the report for Filch, since I’m—“

“Head Boy!” They all chorus in a sing-song way like primary school children. They do this all the time, but Longbottom doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he seems to like the attention. 

“They didn’t tell us what they were planning to do with it, but Minerva thinks they were training it to steal the Quidditch cup from her office. Filch nearly cried, begged her to let him use Veritaserum on them. Merlin knows where they were hiding the damn thing, it’s mammoth!”

“Genius,” Finnigan shouts, spraying trifle. “Absolute bloody genius, those girls. I think we should invite them to—“ Ron clears his throat loudly and cuts Finnigan off, putting an arm around Granger at the same time.

“—to…the Yule Ball,” he finishes lamely. Granger narrows her eyes shrewdly.

“The Yule Ball is for eighth years only. Those girls are third years.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Seamus. “I forgot.” He takes another big spoonful of trifle. Longbottom looks at Weasley, and Weasley looks at Potter, and Potter winks at Draco and tries not to laugh. Granger starts a conversation with Girl Weasley about the new perfumery in Hogsmeade and Potter passes Finnigan his invisibility cloak under the table. 

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

When Draco climbs through the portrait hole later that evening he trips over a crate of butterbeer and falls flat on his arse. Neville helps him up, but Draco falls again when he notices there are two gorillas dancing around the common room.

Dancing to music — he can’t tell where it’s coming from, but it’s very loud, and most of the other eighth years are dotted about the room, sipping drinks and dancing. Every time the gorillas stamp their feet the walls shake, and the portrait of Roderick Plumpton (now lopsided) snorts and grumbles. Draco looks over to see that the Golden Trio are squashed together on the squashy sofa by the fire. Harry’s got his leg crossed over his knee, and his foot is tapping in time to the music.

When he looks back, Neville is holding out a bottle of butterbeer to him, smiling. 

He takes it, although he hasn’t had a drink all year. He thinks about drinking after every Transfiguration lesson, but NEWT year is so stressful he thinks that if he starts drinking he might never stop. He opens the butterbeer anyway.

“Fred and George released a new product today,” Neville says confidentially. “Gorilla Granola. Like Canary Creams.”

Canary Creams are an awful trick, and Draco has never forgiven Pansy for slipping him one after he said her new haircut made her look like a weimaraner. 

It’s hard to hear anything over the music and the stamping, so Neville leans in close to Draco’s ear.

“Don’t tell Hermione,” he says, breath smelling like firewhiskey, “but that’s Saoirse and Aoife.”

The Niffler girls? Hermione— Granger will go on a rampage if she knows third years have been invited to a party with alcohol present. 

Neville nods towards the two gorillas, who are swinging from a light fixing and hollering. He’s never seen this level of mischief in the eighth year common room, and it’s frankly terrifying. But funny. Mad, actually. He takes a long swig of butterbeer and giggles, feeling joy bubble up from somewhere he’d forgotten. Then Potter comes up looking cross and drags him away by the arm.

“Dance with me,” Potter says roughly. Draco giggles again, but he wishes Harry didn’t look so cross. He looks back at Neville, belatedly thinking it would have been polite to say goodbye, but Harry pulls on his arm again. “Dance with me.”

Draco thinks back to being dipped in Flitwick’s classroom and his heart skips. But he doesn’t think he can dance right now, he’s only had half a butterbeer but it’s gone straight to his head. Come to think of it, it does taste a bit funny. There’s a butterbeer label on the bottle but it looks and smells much more like whiskey. 

He lets Harry put his hands on his hips, rock them together, and lean in till their foreheads are nearly touching. The proximity is making him dizzy and his knees are going to give out any second. Harry’s eyes are blazing. He looks more determined than Draco’s ever seen him. The music is thumping, but Draco thinks his heart may be thumping louder. 

Draco tilts his head and licks his lips without thinking. Harry yanks Draco closer to him, pulls him back and they go toppling over the back of the sofa Granger and Weasley are sitting on.

“Right, that’s enough,” shouts Weasley. Harry scrambles up and looks dazed. “If you’re going to embarrass yourself, you should at least do it sober so you remember it.” 

“Are you alright, Draco?” asks Neville, who has appeared by his side. Draco thrusts the bottle (which he has miraculously not spilled) into Neville’s hands and nods wildly. Harry shoots Neville an odd look and Weasley says something to him in a low voice that Draco can’t hear.

“It’s nearly one in the morning, we should all be going to bed.” Granger yawns, closing her copy of _Webster’s Intergalactic Wickedary_. Weasley is already pulling Harry up the stairs, but Granger is looking across the room. “Hang on…” 

The gorillas, standing on the study tables and beating their chests, are getting less hairy by the minute. It’s falling off them in clumps, revealing two girls whose real hair is dyed electric purple. 

“Is that? The Niffler girls? SEAMUS!” 

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

On Halloween, Harry doesn’t talk at breakfast. Draco doesn’t make him talk, even though he wants to tell him that he feels like he’s sitting in one place again, not split into two and watching his life from the outside as well as living it. He had told Harry about that, the night the eighth years camped out on the lawn watching for the Pleiades. He’s not sure if Harry fully understood what he meant, but Harry had held his hand and listened to him anyway. 

Draco is fully in his own body this morning, he stayed in it the whole time he was showering and during the walk down to breakfast. Now, Harry’s silence is threatening to split him in two again.

He stirs his porridge instead of eating it, listening to the conversation around him. Seamus and Dean are arguing about the new Quidditch laws (there was a vote to automatically end games exceeding two and a half months, which Seamus is calling a miscarriage of justice, and Dean is calling _common fucking sense_ ). Ginny and Luna are discussing how menstruating on Samhain affects their magic, which has caused Neville to turn a startling shade of puce and add salt to his coffee four times. Granger is opposite Harry, trying to catch his eye, but he won’t look at her. She reaches for his hand but he gets up without a word and storms off.

Double Arithmancy is irrevocably dreadful, and Ancient Runes gives him a headache behind the eyes.

When he heads up to the dormitory before dinner, he trips over Hermione on the stairs. She’s crying quite horribly, tears leaking all down her face in a way that makes Draco’s stomach drop to his feet.

“Do you need me to find you a Weasley?” he asks softly, before realising a split-second later that if she has had a lover’s tiff with the Weasel, that was about the most insensitive thing he could have said.

Well. Not the most insensitive. But he’s trying to be reformed. And bizarrely, it’s working. The Gryffindors seem to have adopted him, they let him sit at their table and call him by his first name and never mention that it was him who was responsible for almost getting them all killed. And they only make fun of his hair on Tuesdays.

Granger shakes her head and buries her face in her hands.

“It’s Harry,” she sobs. “It’s awful! And it never stops being awful, and there’s nothing we can do because, they’re not,” she wails, “and he _never_ knew them, which makes it even worse…”

While conjuring a lace hanky Draco’s stomach drops even further, as he remembers Halloween is the day Harry’s parents died. Even though it happened before he was old enough to hold a wand, the mark seared on to his arm makes it feel like it’s his fault. 

“And you!” she cries, taking the hanky and blowing her nose violently. “Are you ever going to ask me for that Snell-Hornby book? I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me all year!” 

“…Please can I borrow the Snell-Hornby book, Hermione?”

“Yes, you can,” she throws it at him. “Now tell me what’s going on with you and Harry before I have to hex it out of you!”

He almost does tell her, everything, about how he’s been half in love with Harry for as long as he can remember, even when he hated him, or maybe he only hated himself, and he doesn’t know how Harry feels at all because he can’t figure anything out anymore, all he knows is he orbits Harry like a satellite, sticks to him like a magnet, he doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going and he can’t help himself.

Weasley appears looking grim from the dormitory door behind Hermione, nods at him with a “Ferret,” and murmurs something, probably about Harry, in her ear. She gets up and smooths out her robes, and Weasley hugs her tightly. 

The pair set off towards the Halloween feast, but Draco has other ideas.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It was a piece of cake in the end, he thought he’d have to confundus Filch and was near willing to risk expulsion for it, but Saoirse and Aoife were happy to help. They were now calling themselves the Guerrilla Girls, using Gorilla Granola to perform their pranks without getting caught. 

He ran into them in the corridor adjacent to the Great Hall, where they were busy bewitching pumpkins to sing Christmas carols. He’d asked them if they could be so kind as to distract the caretaker for a few minutes. Both their faces split into wide grins and they gave him a salute.

After that it was easy. He waited fifteen minutes, and then when he heard screaming, ducked behind the stone statue of Joscelind Wadcock. Filch came tearing up the corridor with Mrs Norris bringing up the rear, tail high in the air.

A simple unlocking charm, a diffindo on the padlocked filing cabinet, four minutes of frantic searching and he had got what he wanted. 

He stuffed it in his bag and hurried down the corridor and up the stairs, back to the Great Hall where he discovered a Niffler wasn’t the only thing the Guerrilla Girls had been growing to epic proportions.

Pygmy Puffs were careering down between the house tables, but they were no longer pygmy — they were the size of hot air balloons. A poffle of pink and purple puffs were rolling around, squashing students and squeaking and knocking over the floating candles. McGonagall sat at the staff table with her head in her hands. Draco heard the ghost of Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington exclaim, “Never seen such a display in all my death!” and spotted a crowd of Hufflepuff prefects trying to protect little first years from being trampled. 

He darted in and stole two pumpkin pies from the Slytherin table, then rushed back up to the dormitory. He did not see his old headmaster, watching the chaos from inside a gilt-framed portrait, eyes twinkling.

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

By the morning of the next day Draco thinks he has made a terrible mistake. Filch will know it’s missing, and even if Draco isn’t blamed he doesn’t want to get those girls in trouble. Well, in any more trouble, because after the Pygmy Puff stunt they’ll no doubt be in detention till Christmas. 

And it wasn’t his to take, and maybe Harry doesn’t want it, or doesn’t want him to have taken it, and maybe he should have just left well alone.

“Draco? You need to breathe.” Shit. Here he is. Looking lovely. His hair’s getting too long, and Draco must remember to remind him not to cut it.

He shuffles over to the other side of the bed to give Harry space to come in and draw the hangings behind him. He gives a half-hearted attempt at breathing and then pulls the file from under his pillow.

“This is for you.” 

Harry looks concerned, but takes it. He pulls a strange face when he reads the _Potter, James_ in the top right hand corner. 

“What’s this…?”

“I stole it. I’m sorry. I didn’t read it. I thought you might— might want it. Sorry.” He’s babbling, and Harry wait for him to breathe. He gulps a breath. “Sorry.”

“Is this my Dad’s school record?” 

Draco nods.

Harry opens it carefully, taking in the worn parchment and faded ink. Draco thinks he can see the words ‘horse’ and ‘custard’ in the _Reason for Detention_ column, but it’s hard to read upside down.

After a few minutes, Harry sets the file aside and wipes at his eyes. He launches towards Draco, capturing him in a bone-crushing bear hug that accidentally smashes Draco’s head against the headboard. Oh well, he didn’t need those brain cells anyway. And now he doesn’t mind about not being able to breathe. 

They lie like this, cramped and squashed together, and the arm of Harry’s glasses is digging into Draco’s collarbone but it’s alright. He tangles his fingers in Harry’s jumper and then, when he senses no protest, into his thick hair. Harry hugs him tighter. 

A few minutes later, or it could have been an hour, because everyone else in the dormitory seems to have gone down to breakfast, Harry asks him to go to Hogsmeade together.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

In mid-November, in Flitwick’s second dance class, they partner each other again, even though Harry could have chosen anyone. He’s puzzling this out when Harry says in his ear:

“We should dance at the ball.” 

Draco is holding Harry’s hand, because they’re in hold, and he accidentally squeezes it hard.

“Wouldn’t your date mind?” he asks bitterly. Harry frowns. “Have you asked anyone yet? I haven’t seen any girls wet themselves with delight recently.”

“I’m asking someone,” Harry says slowly. “But I’m not sure they realise I’m asking.”

Draco pulls Harry’s other hand further up his back to the correct position, then missteps and steps on Harry’s foot. Forget about NEWTs, this dancing is driving him insane.

“Well you should probably stop being so bloody incoherent then. It’s ironic actually, because you have a knack for pointing out the obvious, but when it comes to things like this you—“

“Draco,” Harry interrupts loudly, stopping their dance and accidentally drawing the attention of the other eighth year couples around them. “Please will you go to the Yule Ball with me?”

The shock lasts for a good few seconds. 

In fact, he may never recover.

When he says yes Harry lifts him off his feet, and it’s as if someone slipped felix felicis in his tea. 

Somewhere far away Professor Flitwick is cheering, and Ron is insisting that he knew this would happen for years, and Neville is applauding, and somebody’s enchanted the gramophone to belt out _A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love_. 

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The hall is beautiful, decorated in hundreds of gold and cerulean baubles, and lametta draped over each of the twelve exquisitely decorated fir trees. Harry’s wearing the green robes that bring out his eyes, and he’s tried to do something to his hair and it hasn’t worked, and Draco loves him all the more for it, and thinks very hard about leaning up and kissing him but he feels weak at the knees again and just a smidgen overwhelmed.

He hasn’t seen any giant animals yet, but Neville has already warned him not to try the mince pies. No-one has seen the Guerrilla Girls, but the suits of armour either side of the doors did salute Draco when he walked in.

Tonight, Draco lets himself be. He lets a tipsy-looking Hermione kiss him on the cheek, and he lets Ron cuff him on the shoulder, and he lets Harry pull him onto the glittering marble dance floor and whirl him and whisk him away, until everything but them is just sounds and colours, and lights and laughter, and he lets himself be dipped.

And then it’s finally happening, and Harry’s lips are warm and soft and he tastes of daisy wine. He kisses him deeply, pulling his arms tightly around Harry’s neck to get closer, closer, all the while his heart spinning like a Catherine wheel. His heart’s about to burst, and he feels made of solid gold. 

Harry pulls back, and they’re both grinning like idiots, and Draco feels an inch away from saying something embarrassingly true about how he feels. He leans back in instead. He slides their lips together, forgetting all his thoughts when their tongues finally touch. 

They break apart again when they hear noises from the crowd. 

Harry looks equally surprised to notice he’s in a room full of people, but none of the people are noticing them. They are all pointing up at the enchanted sky, letting out gasps and adjusting tiaras as they tilt their heads back.

It’s a meteor shower. Shooting stars.  
Draco wishes he’ll pass all his NEWTs, and he wishes for his mother’s health, and he wishes this night would last forever, and then he takes that back because he knows they’ve got to move on, eventually, to wherever they’re going. He brushes fairy dust out of Harry’s hair and wishes, out loud, that Harry would kiss him again.

And he does, until a Golden Snidget the size of a house crashes into the room and they all have to dive under the refreshment tables.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it. And yes, I have been watching Strictly.  
>  _Webster's Intergalactic Wickedary_ is a real book by Mary Daly and Jane Caputi, and I highly recommend it for all witches.


End file.
